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25040Venturebeat.comAOL expands its ‘One’ platform to include tools that help publishers sell to advertisershttp://venturebeat.com/2016/01/25/aol-expands-its-one-platform-to-include-tools-that-help-publishers-sell-to-advertisers/
http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/25/aol-expands-its-one-platform-to-include-tools-that-help-publishers-sell-to-advertisers/#respondMon, 25 Jan 2016 13:00:30 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1866731AOL has developed an offering that gives publishers a way to monetize their work without having to use tools from multiple companies. Called One by AOL: Publishers, it consolidates the company’s portfolio of services into a single package that provides audience engagement, analytics, content distribution, and revenue management all in one place. One by AOL […]
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AOL has developed an offering that gives publishers a way to monetize their work without having to use tools from multiple companies. Called One by AOL: Publishers, it consolidates the company’s portfolio of services into a single package that provides audience engagement, analytics, content distribution, and revenue management all in one place.

One by AOL bears the name of a product suite featuring tools for advertisers that AOL launched in 2015. The differences are the target audience (this latest offering is aimed at the people who supply ad placements) and the specific products included. AOL wants to show Moviefone, MapQuest, Build, Makers, and the 75,000-plus publishers on its network that it has solutions not only for advertisers, which most platforms are geared toward, but specifically for the publisher community.

AOL president of publisher platform Tim Mahlman elaborated: “In 2015, when working with AOL, brands had to sign seven different agreements, buy products from seven companies…we’re looking for a more consolidated story. There’s one pricing model now. When we walk into the publisher, they have one Master Service Agreement (MSA) to sign and one price that they can basically buy if they want to use all the assets.”

Over the past six years, the company said it has spent more than $1 billion on technology aimed at establishing AOL as a major player for publisher needs. This new One by AOL offering features seven of the company’s products: its display ad platform,Marketplace; an ad-serving provider, AdTech; video syndication business, AOL On; video monetization solution, One Video; interest graph product, Gravity; another video syndication startup, Vidible; and another monetization platform, Millennial Media.

This complete package may seem like a lot for the average publisher, but this wholesale approach means lower overall costs for site owners, who would otherwise pay quite a bit more for individual services. In addition to the seven products included in One by AOL, the company also offers supplemental a la carte options.

One piece that’s missing from this publisher suite is a way to deal with native advertising. AOL hasn’t included such a product, but may do so in the future. That issue has been temporarily resolved for now, however, thanks to the company’s recent strategic partnership with Taboola,

Just as with One by AOL: Advertisers, the publisher version of AOL One is built around the idea of a “more open” platform. Mahlman told VentureBeat that it’s all about avoiding a “technology tax”: “Publishers need a solution to help them with display technology, video inventory, mobile app inventory, etc. Each one of [these needs] means that publishers have to talk to 3 to 5 companies to find a solution to solve the problem. They’re taxed for using each technology, and each one comes with a different price tag.”

“Since AOL owns those assets, we’re coming at it with one solution and our bundle is more lucrative to publishers,” Mahlman continued. “We provide a more compelling pricing option instead of cutting different deals. It’s interesting to publishers because they want to secure and grow inventory, but also have to meet expectations on delivering the bottom line. By making it more cost-effective to them is music to their ears.”

More developments are expected not only this year but also in 2017, and include the possibility of opening up a partner API which grants vetted developers access to One. Mahlman confirmed that additional innovations will be made, but wasn’t more forthcoming, except to say that the company was “looking at things at a more open platform, not a walled garden, while also giving publishers the flexibility of plugging in third-party applications and giving them a bespoke way of leveraging publisher-side technology.”

To further boost the capability of One, AOL announced that it has acquired programmatic ad platform AlephD. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but while AlephD will remain as a standalone brand for now, its technology is being rolled up into One by AOL: Publishers.

With AlephD’s inclusion in One, publishers will be able to calculate the best price for each impression they receive in real time, find an optimal price for new and ongoing deals, monitor and analyze ad auctions, and more. The company touts it as an alternative for publishers: “an open partner that can intelligently and algorithmically help publishers determine the right price at the right time for every single impression, across all formats, screens, and inventory types.”

One by AOL: Publishers is now available globally.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/25/aol-expands-its-one-platform-to-include-tools-that-help-publishers-sell-to-advertisers/feed/01866731AOL expands its ‘One’ platform to include tools that help publishers sell to advertisersGoogle’s first state-side Adsense partner will make your crappy site sing (and more money)http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/12/googles-first-state-side-adsense-partner-will-make-your-crappy-site-sing-and-more-money/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/12/googles-first-state-side-adsense-partner-will-make-your-crappy-site-sing-and-more-money/#respondFri, 12 Sep 2014 16:07:28 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1550871Google wants you to make more money. Of course, to do so, it must sell more ads -- and make more money itself (Google is OK with that).
But there's a problem: Your site is crappy. And no one clicks on your ads.
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Google wants you to make more money. Of course, to do so, it must sell more ads — and make more money itself (Google is OK with that).

But there’s a problem: Your site is crappy. And no one clicks on your ads.

Above: Ezoic takes a website, breaks it down, and serves out multiple test versions of the same content

Image Credit: Ezoic

Those are exactly the challenges that Ezoic, Google’s first-ever North American Adsense partner (and only, to date) aims to fix. And, in doing so, it plans to bring better usability, improved aesthetics, and the science of multivariate testing to even the smallest and lowest-tech websites on the planet.

While bumping your revenue by 240 percent.

AdSense is Google’s program for allowing web publishers to put Google ads on their sites. Unlike its partner program AdWords, which is allows advertisers to place ads, AdSense has never had stateside third-party partners. Until now.

“Think of an automated Optimizely, but for publishers,” CEO Dwayne Lafleur told me via email about his startup, Ezoic.

Much of the best content on the web, Lafleur says, is still on small to medium-sized websites and blogs published by passionate hobbyists and individual experts. Unfortunately, while they may be subject-matter gurus, they’re not necessarily focused on providing the best website experience. And even if their site is not Geocities-bad, it’s almost certainly not anywhere near optimized for making a few extra bucks.

Enter Ezoic.

Point your domain to Ezoic or paste a line of code into your headers, and the company will take over the delivery of your site, much like Cloudflare or another content delivery network might. But the service will also deeply understand your content, mash up your elements, make it mobile-friendly, insert ads where appropriate, and test multiple versions. Automatically.

“We understand that Text A is a heading that goes with paragraph B. Or image Y goes with caption X,” says Lafleur, a transplanted Canadian living in San Diego. “Once it has separated the content from the layout and understood it, we are then able to create new layouts with the same content on all devices quite easily.”

The technology works with any content management system, including the ubiquitous WordPress, because Ezoic grabs content at the HTML layer, after it has been output by your website.

Above: Ezoic’s code in action

Image Credit: John Koetsier

“One of the big advantages of our approach and our technology is that not only is it CMS and technology agnostic on the publisher end, it makes all this great content available on all platforms (mobile, tablet, desktop) and will on any new platform that may emerge (iWatch, Google Glass, VR, etc) without the publisher having to do the work to support it themselves,” Lafleur says.

Above: Publlishers can optimize for different goals, Ezoic says

Image Credit: Ezoic

Google killed its own version of a website optimizer in 2012, and opening up the AdSense partner program to third-party companies could be a way of replacing some of that functionality, Lafleur speculates.

In addition, with increased competition from social networks and mobile ad networks, Google’s dominance of the digital ad industry is no longer as secure as it might have been three or four years ago. So offering publishers help to better monetize their content makes sense as a long-term competitive strategy as well as a short-term revenue strategy.

The average site sees a 240 percent increase in revenue, Ezoic says, plus lower bounce rates and more visitor time on site. One site, inspirational quote site Wow4u.com, took revenue from a few thousand dollars to over $20,000.

While the program sounds great for small sites, it’s not just for them, Lafleur says.

“Generally speaking, it’s designed for websites that don’t have the resources or expertise in-house to do their own testing, but it works for sites of all sizes. The largest website running right now gets just shy of 10,000,000 visits per month.”

Ezoic is based in San Diego, Calif., and has taken in $5.6 million in funding from Balderton Capital, New Amsterdam Capital, and private investors.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/12/googles-first-state-side-adsense-partner-will-make-your-crappy-site-sing-and-more-money/feed/01550871Google’s first state-side Adsense partner will make your crappy site sing (and more money)Taboola leads market for paid content discovery and will make $100M this yearhttp://venturebeat.com/2013/11/20/taboola-leads-market-for-paid-content-discovery-and-will-make-100m-this-year/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/20/taboola-leads-market-for-paid-content-discovery-and-will-make-100m-this-year/#commentsThu, 21 Nov 2013 07:30:05 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=863297Taboola is raking in the moola. (Aren’t bad rhymes the best?) The startup, which powers a content recommendation platform, revealed that it crossed $100 million in annual run rate, which means that if it keeps making money at its current rate, it will rake in $100 million in a year. It is now profitable with […]
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The startup, which powers a content recommendation platform, revealed that it crossed $100 million in annual run rate, which means that if it keeps making money at its current rate, it will rake in $100 million in a year. It is now profitable with 120 employees, and claims to have one of highest revenue-per-employees rates in tech.

According to Compete, Taboola is also the industry leader for paid content discovery, ranking ahead of Outbrain, Disqus, and nRelate in both unique visitors and page views.

Taboola’s marketplace has marketers and brands on one side, who bid to distribute their content on top publisher sites, and algorithms on the other side, to match content with the most relevant users and predict what they want to watch.

Brands and marketers use the technology to maximize their reach and optimize audience engagement. Publishers use it to “re-circulate” their own traffic by generating on-site content recommendations.

Taboola serves 1.5 billion recommendations daily on sites including Time.com, NY Times, Fox Broadcasting, USA Today, Bloomberg, The Weather Channel, and BusinessWeek. (Disclosure: VentureBeat also uses Taboola, whose story recommendations appear at the bottom of every story on our site, and the partnership generates revenue for us.)

One of Taboola’s areas of focus are videos. People love videos. We watch them by the billions and thus they are the most popular formats for ad buyers. CMO.com conducted a study which found that consumers are 27 times more likely to click through online video ads than standard banners, and U.S. digital video ad spending will nearly double in only four years, climbing from $4.14 billion this year to $8.04 billion in 2016.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/20/taboola-leads-market-for-paid-content-discovery-and-will-make-100m-this-year/feed/3863297Taboola leads market for paid content discovery and will make $100M this yearBoundless continues battles against sky-high textbook priceshttp://venturebeat.com/2013/08/06/boundless-continues-battles-against-sky-high-textbook-prices/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/06/boundless-continues-battles-against-sky-high-textbook-prices/#respondTue, 06 Aug 2013 23:49:17 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=790280Textbook provider Boundless launched an iOS application and a premium offering today, continuing its efforts to making educational content more accessible for college students.
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College textbook prices are soaring at an alarming rate, increasing faster than tuition, medical services, and even new homes. Boundless launched iOS application and a premium offering today, continuing its efforts to making educational content more accessible for college students.

Boundless is a service that curates free digital textbooks and study resources for college students. The company’s tagline is “It’s not your assigned textbook, it’s better.” It draws from Open Education Resources and experts to offer alternatives to traditional textbooks, which cost the average college student $655 each year. Founder Ariel Diaz said that his mission is to give students the power to choose how they learn and enable them to learn in a more affordable way.

“Students deserve better than the status quo of ineffective, overpriced textbooks,” Diaz said. “They’ve grown up with amazing technology but are burdened with poorly-designed products or ancient technology when they get their education.”

More than one million students use Boundless resources each month. It offers free content for 21 college level subjects. The premium service costs $19.99 and will feature built-in interactive study materials for each subject, including flashcards, quizzes, and summarization to help students retain information. It will also give students access to enhanced content and the native mobile apps.

When developing these updates, Boundless incorporated feedback from users as well as educational research which found that people learn more effectively when they are actively engaged in the material, as opposed to passively consuming it. Diaz aims to provide a more interactive, open, lightweight alternative, not just a cheaper one, and the textbook publishers have not responded kindly to his efforts.

Three major textbook publishers (Pearson Education Cengage Learning and Bedford Freeman & Worth Publishing Group) sued Boundless for copyright violations earlier this year. Boundless then filed answers and counterclaims with the court denying all allegations of wrongdoing. Diaz said that they “ganged up” on Boundless to stifle innovation and “protect their stagnant product” that keeps textbook prices artificially high.

Diaz, however, won’t be stifled and has continued working away at growing Boundless. Hundreds of thousands of students access Boundless content from their mobile devices and Diaz said the native apps will provide a more enjoyable personalized experience “without an insane price tag.”

Boundless is one of many ed-tech startups that seek to make education more affordable. Student debt in America has surpassed $1 trillion. Millions of students are saddled with loans that burden them for years after graduation and limit their opportunities. The high price of higher education also means that college is out of financial reach for those who aren’t near the top of the socio-economic spectrum, which makes it significantly harder to land a lucrative job.

Making education accessible and affordable is crucial for economic growth and innovation. Boundless won’t always be a sufficient replacement. The content is not identical to what students find in traditional textbooks, which could present a problem if assignments specifically draw from that text. Boundless is helping to drive change by demonstrating that educational resources don’t have to be outrageously expensive, but it is up to the universities, publishers, and students to promote change as well.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/06/boundless-continues-battles-against-sky-high-textbook-prices/feed/0790280Boundless continues battles against sky-high textbook pricesSkyword takes off with $6.7M for content marketinghttp://venturebeat.com/2013/05/17/skyword-takes-off-with-6-7m-for-the-3-ss-of-content-marketing/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/17/skyword-takes-off-with-6-7m-for-the-3-ss-of-content-marketing/#respondFri, 17 May 2013 18:36:39 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=739617Skyword has announced closing $6.7 million in growth financing for its content marketing solutions. This Boston-based startup provides agencies, brands, media, and retail customers with a platform to publish content and tools to distribute it effectively.
]]>Consumers these days expect their favorite brands to tell a story, and Skyword helps them tell it. Skyword has announced closing $6.7 million in growth financing for its content marketing solutions.

This Boston-based startup provides agencies, brands, media, and retail customers with a platform to publish and effectively distribute content. It has a database of more than 20,000 professional writers that publishers can use to recruit and manage freelancers and keep track of workflow.

“The art of content marketing is in the beauty and quality of the writing itself – its voice and ability to speak to an audience in a personal and compelling way,” the company said on its site. “To excel at the science of web content creation, you need a technology framework to adhere to the 3 Ses of successful content.”

The three in question are “searchable, snackable, and shareable.” Once content is created, Skyword recommends keywords and suggestions for SEO and provides built-in tools for sharing across social media. Skyword also includes analytics so publishers can track marketing and writer performance, social media metrics, and search engine rankings and make editorial decisions accordingly.

Clients include IBM, MarketWatch, and AutoTrader.com. Cox Media Group led this round which will expand the team and help the company meet increasing customer and partner needs, “as content marketing becomes an integral part of brand marketing initiatives.” Skyword was founded in 2010. This brings its total capital raised to $12 million.

Photo Credit: Mike Cogh/Flickr

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/17/skyword-takes-off-with-6-7m-for-the-3-ss-of-content-marketing/feed/0739617Skyword takes off with $6.7M for content marketingBookshout! raises $6M to amplify authors’ digital voiceshttp://venturebeat.com/2013/04/25/bookshout-raises-6m-to-amplify-authors-digital-voices/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/25/bookshout-raises-6m-to-amplify-authors-digital-voices/#respondThu, 25 Apr 2013 18:36:58 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=725169Dallas startup Bookshout! has raised $6 million for its platform that helps authors and publishers expand their audience.
]]>Reading is generally a quiet activity, but today Bookshout! is proclaiming that it has raised $6 million.

Bookshout offers multiple tools to support reader engagement.

On the consumer side, Bookshout has a social reading app where people can find books and connect with their friends and authors. However, the company has shifted to a stronger focus on publishers and authors.

On Bookshout’s platform suite, publishers and authors can promote their content and deepen engagement with audiences. Authors create branded pages that highlight their work and form communities around the pages, known as “circles.” Whenever someone buys a book through Bookshout, it adds them to the author’s circle. Authors can communicate directly with their fans regarding announcements, upcoming events, or new releases and distribute branded promotional codes and gift cards for their books.

Bookshout recently added a channel for publishers to conduct digital bulk, custom, and corporate sales and gather analytics. The Dallas-based company said it works with more than 250 publishers and is currently generating revenue. This round, which was led by Texas venture capital firm Ambassador Enterprises, will build out the bulk sales and analytics for e-books tools.

This is Bookshout’s second round of funding, and significant for the North Texas investment community which the Dallas Morning News called “lackluster.” The company previously raised $2 million from Ambassador in 2011. It is based at the Plano incubator Gravity Centre and has 12 employees.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/25/bookshout-raises-6m-to-amplify-authors-digital-voices/feed/0725169Bookshout! raises $6M to amplify authors’ digital voicesFee-fi-fo-fum: Virool raises giant-sized first roundhttp://venturebeat.com/2013/02/14/fee-fi-fo-fum-virool-raises-giant-sized-seed-round/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/14/fee-fi-fo-fum-virool-raises-giant-sized-seed-round/#respondThu, 14 Feb 2013 18:00:31 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=621996Video advertising platform Virool raises $6.6 million in seed funding, which is the largest seed round in Y Combinator's history.
]]>Y Combinator seed rounds are getting so big, they seem more like Jack’s beanstalk than the beans that sprouted them.

Billing itself as the “video ad network for the modern age,” Virool has raised a whopping $6.62 million “seed” round, the largest round in Y Combinator’s history.

Considering the size of the round and the inclusion of institutional investors, calling this a “Series A,” or the first round of institutional funding, may seem more accurate. However, founder Alex Debelov said the entire round was raised in on covertible debt and Virool is not taking any members on its board. Hence, it is a seed round.

Virool offers a self-service social video advertising platform to make video content go viral. Advertisers can use it to blast their content out to multiple online publishers, who get paid for the videos they show inside their properties. Developers can also integrate Virool’s API into their apps to more easily execute wide-reaching video advertising campaigns, and companies have access to real-time analytics to track their success.

According to Debelov, many social video ad platforms require a minimum of $100,000 to promote sponsored video content, which makes it inaccessible for smaller advertisers. Using Virool, anyone can start a video campaign for as little as $10 and only pay for the ad when someone watches their content for 30 seconds or longer.

Video advertising is predicted to skyrocket in the upcoming year, a trend investors are clearly paying attention to. Since launching in March, Virool has grown from 200 to more than 30,000 customers, ranging from independent artists to large corporate clients like Intel, Samsung, K-Swiss, Sony, and Orbitz. The platform apparently reaches 750,000 people a day and more than 22 million a month.

The list of contributors include big names in venture capital and angel investing, and Virool will use the funds to meet high demand for its product. Institutional investors include Thomvest Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurveston, Yuri Milner, Phenomenon Ventures, TMT Investments, DominateFund, and FundersClub. Individual investors include Sam Altman, Paul Buchheit, Troy Carter, Dave McClure, Farzad Nazem, Erik Moore, and Garry Tan. Virool was also the first company to officially receive investment from online investing platform FundersClub.

Many in the startup community advise against huge seed rounds because it involves giving away significant equity and freedom early on. Ironically, Virool investor Dave McClure spoke just last week about the importance of not taking excessive amounts of seed financing and keeping valuations in check. Often in the bubble that is Silicon Valley, people in all parts of the ecosystem focus too much on fundraising and equate large investments with validation or success.

Only time will tell if this funding lifts Virool up to the new heights, or if it gets crushed by the weight of the beanstalk.

Check out Virool’s video called “The Secret of All Viral Videos” to learn more … kind of.

]]>http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/14/fee-fi-fo-fum-virool-raises-giant-sized-seed-round/feed/0621996Fee-fi-fo-fum: Virool raises giant-sized first roundJack Dorsey: the future of Twitter is anything (and everything)http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/17/jack-dorsey-future-of-twitter-anything-everything/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/17/jack-dorsey-future-of-twitter-anything-everything/#commentsMon, 17 Sep 2012 14:52:46 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=532114"Please keep your questions focused on Techonomy," one of the media handlers said.
]]>The handlers were a little nervous. Jack Dorsey, the undisputed headliner of the conference, was entering the press room after his onstage Q&A.

“We’ve got about 10 minutes. Please keep your questions focused on Techonomy,” one of them said.

Dorsey spoke at Techonomy last week in Detroit. I was there to hear him, among others, and visit Detroit startups. But I had a very specific question for Dorsey, and it had nothing at all to do with Detroit, or tech economies, or the speech he had just given.

It had much more to do with what Twitter is becoming.

The social network of now has massively tightened down access to its API recently, reducing the amount of Twitter data that third-party developers can use in their applications. Applications need to be certified, and authenticated, and likely, at some point, paid for. That’s causing some angst for developers, who — with some justification — feel that third-party applications are part of what made Twitter a massive success in the first place.

Above: Twitter chairman Jack Dorsey at Techonomy Detroit

Image Credit: John Koetsier

The tactic seems to be part of a larger strategy that takes Twitter away from its roots as a communication utility with open access for all and towards an old-school media and publishing company that jealously guards its crown jewels. O’Reilly Media’s Edd Dumbill calls it a “bait-and-switch,” saying that Twitter is now cable TV, or even Comcast, Verizon.

In other words, no more rip-mix-burn here.

So I decided to be a little rude. And I asked the question: what, with the API changes — and extended tweets that suck even more content into Twitter, discouraging user exits — is Twitter becoming?

Dorsey answered thoughtfully, as he always does.

“Whatever its users want it to be,” he said. “Twitter is a communication utility … ask 100 people what Twitter is and you’ll get 100 different answers, and that’s OK.”

Dorsey said that this was just the same as asking what the world is — again you’d get hundreds if not thousands of different answers, as each replied according to his or her own perspective.

“We’re just focused on building the best platform and making sure it’s up and stable,” he finished.

There’s no question that throughout Twitter’s history, users have played a huge role in determining the uses of the site. Retweets, hash tags, lists, search, and many other Twitter features were started by users and migrated into the core product as they gained traction.

But it’s hard to believe that users have asked for the Twitter API to be restricted.